


fellowship

by irnan



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five short conversations Natasha Romanov has had about her teammates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fellowship

**Author's Note:**

> Natasha's explanation to Clint in (iii) owes a lot to other people's meta about her interrogation scenes - I think on fuckyeahblackwidow? - that was just so _right_ it became instant headcanon for me. Also, I feel like I owe an apology for the title. There's just no excuse for the title. I don't even know.

**(i)**  
  
The first time Natasha tried it she was wrangling information out of a girl in a hospital bed who was a witness to what may or may not have been a terrorist attack of the sort SHIELD specialised in. It was somewhat awkward: she was unpracticed at letting her mouth run off without her while concentrating on the face of her opposite, preferring to keep tight and deliberate control of her words, careful with her sentences. She suspected she would be much better at it in Russian. It was so much easier to run your mouth off in your mother tongue, no matter your fluency in the other language. Nor was she comfortable with the thought of revealing any part of herself during an exercise that could so easily fall apart. When Natasha Romanov deployed her feelings and flaws for her own benefit she liked to have them on a very tight leash while doing so.

So she resorted to Clint's two-decades old Introduction Course to Western Capitalist Society, Subsection Geekdom, instead. (There were many basic similarities with this year's more up-to-date Introduction Course to Twenty-First Century Midgard, Subsection Geekdom, several lessons of which she'd caught glimpses of over the last few weeks.) It didn't, Natasha sensed, really matter what she was saying. What mattered was the way she said it, how the other person concentrated so much on following the words that they ignored the person speaking them and forgot themselves, as well: forgot to hide, to worry, to be tense and closed-off.

Amazingly, it worked. The girl actually laughed, and then she spoke freely.

Natasha felt rather proud of herself when she came away from the conversation.  
   
The second time she did it it sent a SHIELD medic packing and left her in peace to nurse her own wounds and gather herself for a minute before facing Fury. It was good to know for certain that it had an edge like that, as well as the soothing side.  
  
The third time, Clint took his sunglasses off and looked at her sideways and said, "Did you just pull a Tony?"

Natasha felt a bit caught out, but she refused to be ashamed. "It worked on me," she said. "At least partly."

"Hah," said Clint meaningfully. "You weren't wrong."

"It was his own fault," said Natasha. "He used to play off both identities like a conductor whose orchestra was playing two different pieces of music at once."

"I like him a lot better than I thought I would," Clint admitted.

Natasha put her hands in her trouser pockets and smiled. "So do I," she said.  
  
  
  
 **(ii)**  
  
The first time she saw Steve shoot a man in cold blood Natasha thought _Hah!_  
  
"I was kinda worried about that," said Clint.

"We're supposed to be the good guys now," said Natasha. "We're meant to take it as an example when our distinguished leaders don't like to kill."

"Bull," said Clint promptly. "If he can't do what's necessary he's no use to me as a teammate, let alone a captain."

"You weren't actually worried it would turn out that way," said Natasha.

Clint shrugged. "Not really. But I had a contingency plan."

"Mutiny in Avengers Tower?"

"What was yours?"

"Never got the chance to decide. Once he pissed Tony off I knew I'd follow him anywhere."

Clint started laughing.

"Anyway," she added, "we need someone in charge who has a better grasp of military strategy than you do."  
  
They sprung him out of the pysch offices two hours later, pleading emergencies and Tony Stark, which was basically the same thing.

"OK," said Steve. "My Weirdest-Things-About-The-Future list has just been completely reorganised."

"You have a list," said Clint.

"I'm not sure reality TV is even on it anymore."

Natasha laughed. "Reality TV will always be on it," she said. "Don't worry. Beer?"

"Love one. Thanks. Any chance it'll help me actually understand why they _hire_ us to kill people and then get upset when we _do_?"

"Oversimplification," said Clint.

"Well," said Steve. "Of course it is. And I'm not trying to claim I like it. Killing people, I mean. But..."

"But look," said Natasha. "I'm a super-assassin and you're a genetically-enhanced war hero from, let's be clear about this, World War Two, and Clint's just crazy."

"True story."

"Shut up, Clint. We're not _normal_. It helps other people."

Steve sighed. "Yeah. No, OK. You're not wrong, I guess. I just. I've barely done anything _but_ get poked at by people who thought they knew better than I did what was best for my, uh, mental health since I woke up. I'm sick and tired of people analysing my feelings." He paused, gave them both a quick thoughtful glance. "I figure you guys understand that pretty well."

They smiled at each other.  
  
  
  
 **(iii)**  
  
It was Sunday night, so the bar was pretty much empty except for Natasha and Clint. They were working their way through their third round and two impressively large club sandwiches with fries _and_ nachos on the side.

"We always eat the same thing when we do this," said Natasha.

"That's because we come to the same kind of places every time, and the variety in the food isn't exactly tremendous," said Clint.

"Why change a winning formula?"

"Besides, you eat enough for six."

"Super-assassin," she said. "Steve and Bruce do as well."

"At least Bruce doesn't need to _all_ the time."

"Yeah." Natasha tapped her beer against the table top in time with the beat of the song playing overhead, brief lull in their conversation filling up easily with music. Then, once she had her mouth full and wouldn't be able to yell at him right away, Clint said offhandedly, "Are you still scared of him?"

Natasha stamped on his foot.

"No," she said sweetly once he'd resurfaced, red-faced, from under the table and she'd had time to chew and swallow. "Why?"

Clint shrugged. "Well," he said. "I always think you're really alike."

Natasha felt her jaw swinging open.

"He uses people's expectations about the Hulk like you use people's expectations about being a woman."

She stared at him. __

_I'm sorry, that was mean._

_Thank you for your cooperation_.

Oh God, Clint was right.

"That _sucks_!"

"What, is it like a girl thing?"

"Yes! No. It's..." She sighed. "It's about not being seen as a person."

"Women are people," Clint objected.

"And someone obviously trained you well when you were a kid that you think that," Natasha said dryly. "Look, the people my tactics generally work on are men who expect certain things of me because, at the heart of it, they don't expect women to be individuals in the same way men are. They expect, whether consciously or unconsciously, me to have - or to lack - certain specific qualities: vulnerability, fear, a lack of talent or rational thinking, because I'm a woman. And they despise me for it. That's what makes it 'a girl thing'. With people like that, it's _all_ women, just by being women."

"With Bruce it's him specifically that people are afraid of," said Clint.

"Exactly. I use their contempt; he uses their fear."

"OK," said Clint. "That makes sense."

They polished off the nachos in silence before Natasha added, "He's kind of hilarious."

"Right? I was not expecting that. He and Steve have both got that - that deadpan thing going on."

"And Fury always looks like he's walked into the Twilight Zone when someone other than Tony makes a joke."

"Eh, that's just 'cause they don't like each other. He expects to take shit from Tony, not from the others..."  
  
  
  
 **(iv)**  
  
After the battle, after Thor and Loki had gone home, after the clean-up had started and the repairs to the helicarrier had begun, Clint slept for nearly two days straight in one of Natasha's hideouts, waking only briefly to use the bathroom, drink water and eat a handful of biscuits before he disappeared back into the land of Nod. Natasha cleaned her guns and nursed her bruises and felt guilty for not joining in the clean-up efforts in some way, though not guilty enough to leave Clint. He staggered out eventually and ate a bowl of cereal, three slices of toast and four scrambled eggs covered in salt, which made her shake her head.

"It's OK, I won't be eating again for another two days," he said and slurped half a cup of coffee down at once.

She smiled. "Feel better?"

"Much. God." He shivered. "How do you do it?"

"I spend a lot of time concentrating on my actions instead of my mind."

"Yeah. All right." He finished his coffee in silence, but Natasha could see the words waiting behind his eyes. Still not blue. Still not blue. Never would be blue again. "Loki's gone," he said. "I did not imagine Thor dragging him off in chains."

"No," said Natasha. "No, you didn't."

Clint sighed. "OK. That. OK. You know, I thought I understood before why you killed them all."

There wasn't much of a reply she could make to that.

"Was it the staff?"

"Yes. And just the staff. If Thor comes back he won't be in a position to do it."

Clint snorted. "Not too worried about him."

"No?"

"He's a good fighter."

"He's a Norse God who thinks there's a redeemable person somewhere underneath Loki's layers of crazy."

Clint sniffed. "I can sympathise with that," he said.

"What," Natasha asked bluntly, "if he takes it too far?"

"Hasn't happened yet. Isn't likely to. He struck me as a guy who was pretty clear about what he believed in and where he drew his lines."

"Yeah."

Where are yours, she didn't ask. Where were hers, for him?

"Also I wanna pick his brains about alien worlds."

"Oh my God, _so much_. So so much."  
  
  
  
 **(v)**  
  
"You trust him that much?" said James.

"Like you trust Steve," said Natasha.

He nodded. "OK then."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Fellowship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601539) by [ArwenLune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune)




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